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34 pages 1 hour read

William Faulkner

Dry September

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1931

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Literary Devices

Dialogue

William Faulkner’s use of dialogue throughout “Dry September” immediately draws the reader into the space of the narrative. While the opening scene in Part 1 informs the reader that the story takes place on an insufferably hot evening in late September, details of the setting and central conflict are exposed through his use of dialogue.

For example, in the initial exchange between Henry Hawkshaw and the townsfolk regarding the rumor that a Black man has raped a white woman, the use of the n-word (and a related epithet) promptly suggests the story takes place in the past.

Further on in Part 1, the Southern landscape comes into focus as one of Hawkshaw’s clients verbally rebukes his tireless defense of Mayes: “Do you claim that anything excuses a [Black man] attacking a white woman? Do you mean to tell me you are a white man and you’ll stand for it? You better go back North where you came from. The South dont want your kind here” (170-71). At the same time, Faulkner solidifies the Southern setting of the narrative and infuses it with the broader social and historical context of the period, whereby Northern sympathizers are associated with disloyalty and weakness.

As the setting of the narrative is established throughout Part 1, the dialogue tags employed by Faulkner mask the identity of the speaker. Tags such as “the client said,” “the second speaker said,” “the youth shouted,” and “the second said” create chaos designed to disorient the reader (170-72). The em dashes at the ends of lines convey the overlapping of voices and create additional tension. While this confusion fails to distinguish one male voice over another among the customers in the barbershop, the singular dominating voice of McLendon rings through, and he commands their attention and steers them through his words toward action.

In Part 3, Faulkner returns to the simplified use of dialogue interspersed with expository prose as the mob hunts Mayes down at his place of employment. By having the mob repeat whispers of “kill him, kill the son” (177), Faulkner infuses the dialogue with rhythm, appropriating the violent chant of groups like the Ku Klux Klan that spread throughout the South at the beginning of the 20th century. This subtle connection between the narrative and the KKK demonstrates the violent racism and injustice that lingered throughout the old South well past the end of slavery.

As the story comes to an end, Faulkner extends the use of hate speech beyond racial conflict toward the topic of domestic abuse. Upon his return home from murdering Mayes, McLendon is angry that his wife is still up: “Haven’t I told you to about sitting up like this, waiting to see when I come in?” (182). Despite his wife’s pleas for him to stop and that he is hurting her, he becomes increasingly aggressive, threatening, “Didn’t I tell you?” (182). The text suggests that his behavior isn’t a one-off; he’s reacted this way before. His admonishment of his wife further demonstrates male ownership of the female form as he grabs her by the shoulder and throws her across a chair. Her unanswered pleas demonstrate the powerlessness and victimization of women, as well as the futility of the female voice, even in the domestic sphere.

Conflict

The central conflict of “Dry September” is the miscarriage of justice perpetuated by oppression and discrimination, a theme frequently employed by Faulkner throughout his literary career. From As I Lay Dying, a novel in the Southern Gothic tradition that puts the poor at odds with the rich, to The Hamlet, a humorous novel that deals with a poor white family’s rise to influence, and Go Down Moses, a collection of fiction exemplifying white guilt and atonement for racial justice, “Dry September” likewise exposes the conflict between Black and white, rich and poor—a repetitive theme throughout Faulkner’s work. As such, it represents consciousness, as well as Faulkner’s effort to reveal the systems of oppression baked into American culture on a grand scale.

Initially focusing primarily on the American South, Faulkner exposes the criminalization and victimization of American Black males that began with slavery and continued well into the 20th century. Integral to this sordid past was the practice of lynching; the torture and murder of Black men were intended to maintain compliance and reinforce white supremacy. As the target of John McLendon’s lynch mob, Will Mayes typifies the terrorization of Black men throughout the South by a white supremacist, amplifying the racial tension and violence that existed between whites and Blacks throughout the period.

Men and women also conflict with each other throughout “Dry September.” Men are considered the decision-makers while women are restricted to the domestic sphere. Men are valued for their action; women are valued for their compliance with traditional femininity, youth, beauty, reputation, and marital status. For example, when Hawkshaw is asked what he knows about Miss Minnie, he replies, “She’s about forty, I reckon. She aint married. That’s why I dont believe—” (169). In other words, her credibility is in doubt simply by virtue of the fact that she isn’t married. Further on, Hawkshaw states, “I aint accusing nobody of nothing. I just know and you fellows know how a woman that never—” (170). As the sentence cuts off, the implication is that Miss Minnie has never married, so she must be a virgin. She must also be sexually frustrated, which from Hawkshaw’s perspective, makes a false accusation of rape more likely. Ironically, even though Miss Minnie may not be entirely credible based on her marital status and social standing, she is to be believed over Will Mayes simply because she is white. In an intersection of gender and racial stereotypes, Faulkner highlights multiple layers of discrimination: White women are inferior to white men, but Black men are inferior to both.

The conflict between rich and poor is exemplified through Miss Minnie’s family, who are described as “comfortable people [but] not the best in Jefferson” (173-74). While Miss Minnie socialized with the aristocracy in her youth, as she and her schoolmates matured, the ensuing disparity in their social rank caused Miss Minnie to lose standing among the elites. Further on, it is also revealed that John McLendon is of modest means whose home is “fresh as a birdcage and almost as small” (182). Even though John has the loudest voice among the men of Jefferson, his status as a war hero and WWI veteran isn’t enough to break through the ranks of the upper echelon.

The conflict between due process under the law versus vigilante justice is demonstrated through the characters of Henry Hawkshaw and John McLendon. Hawkshaw implores the men to follow the rule of law: “Find out the facts first, boys […] let’s get the sheriff and do this thing right” (172). Even though Hawkshaw’s sentiment is echoed by a second soldier in the barbershop, their pleas are overruled, and the manhunt begins. One by one, the men in the barbershop rise from their chairs to follow McLendon in his search for Will Mayes, demonstrating the power of the lynch mob to take the law into their own hands. This state of lawlessness is symptomatic of the underlying struggle between good and evil, illustrating the influence prejudice has over the morality and good sense of men.

Point of View

Written in the objective third person and divided into five parts, “Dry September” exemplifies the innovative narrative style consistent throughout Faulkner’s work.

Parts 1 and 3 of “Dry September” refer to the townspeople and their reaction to the rumor that Will Mayes, a Black man, has raped Minnie Cooper, an unmarried white woman known to the aristocracy around town. Parts 2 and 4 explore the character of Miss Minnie in greater detail, from her background as a young socialite to her current emotional state and social standing. Part 5 provides a glimpse into McLendon’s home life upon returning home from the scene of Will Mayes’s murder.

Similar to Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, in which each chapter is narrated by a different character, or Wild Palms, which demonstrates the inventive use of POV as it shifts across separate storylines, “Dry September” is broken into sections that alternate between action and exposition and masculine and feminine spaces. Accordingly, Parts 1, 3, and 5 expose complex layers of toxic masculinity that permeate the barbershop and, therefore, the town. The decision to hunt down Will Mayes is made within the confines of this exclusive space, devoid of the female voice upon which the rumor is based. Despite Hawkshaw’s repeated proclamations that he “[knows] Will Mayes […] and Miss Minnie Cooper too” (169), none of the men attempt to speak with her, so the collective white male perspective dictates and dominates the action of the narrative.

Parts 2 and 5 represent the feminine space of the narrative, reactionary and subverted by the will of men. In Part 2, Miss Minnie is reduced to the subject of gossip and subterfuge within the context of 1920s social mores demanding her silence. She is the quintessential Southern woman, fully aware of her role in society and her failure to conform to its demands. Further, in Part 4, the women rush to Miss Minnie’s aid to solidify their role as society’s caretakers. As the subtext demonstrates, the voice of the narrator is similarly oppressed by the social mores of the time. In other words, the female space of the narrative is intentionally delineated from the masculine space through Faulkner’s use of point of view.

Setting

The geography of the town of Oxford in Lafayette County, Mississippi, informed the imagined landscape of Faulkner’s own Yoknapatawpha County, and the history of slavery haunts both the real and imagined regions.

The Civil War had been brewing between the North and South during the early part of the 19th century when Mississippi became a slave state in 1817. As the leading producer of cotton with the largest plantations across the South, the white aristocracy in Mississippi depended upon slave labor for economic prosperity, eventually seceding from the Union to join the Confederacy at the beginning of the War in 1861.

Strategically located between the Union and the Confederate territories, many battles were fought across the state, particularly along the shores of the Mississippi River. In 1864, while the Civil War was still raging, Faulkner’s Oxford was burned by the Union after slave trader and Confederate Army general Nathan Bedford Forest had taken refuge there. The general would later join and become the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, serving from 1867 to 1869.

In his approximation of Lafayette in the early 20th-century South, Faulkner blends historical elements with the fictitious. Even though writers have employed historical fiction for centuries, the author’s imagined world of Yoknapatawpha County ushers in a new era for the genre consistent with the Modernist era. While Lafayette County represents the Old South, Faulkner uses Yoknapatawpha to represent the New South as the place where racism and sexism are amplified, exposed, and ultimately redeemed.

For example, in both historical and geographical terms, Oxford serves as the municipal site of Lafayette County. Likewise, Jefferson serves as the Yoknapatawpha county seat. In either case, the courthouse stands in the middle of the town square, and the streets align with the points on a compass; essentially, all roads lead to justice. However, relations between Black men and white women were considered taboo throughout the 1920s. Therefore, it wasn’t uncommon for a Black man to cross over to the opposite side of the street when he saw a white woman coming toward him. Such encounters could lead to accusations of rape, punishable by lynching. However, even though the circumstances leading to the alleged rape of Miss Minnie Cooper are never revealed in “Dry September,” by connecting Lafayette and Yoknapatawpha counties, Faulkner synthesizes the past and the future, demonstrating the deep layers of injustice. Further, by superimposing the New South over the Old, Faulkner chronicles Southern aristocracy’s poverty, alienation, violence, and decay within his real and imagined landscapes.

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